[no subject]

[Mike Friedman <mikedf@xxxxxxxx>]

CounterPunch



November 1, 2002

An Open Letter to Democrats

by RALPH NADER

The Democrats should have an easy time winning control of the House
of Representatives and the Senate in next week's election. Recession
is deepening, unemployment is rising, and corporate corruption
headlines are proliferating. Health care costs, drug prices and the
number of Americans without health care coverage are all increasing.
Median household incomes are falling. Corporate crime has heavily
depleted 401Ks and other pension losses.

These should all help the Democrats win against the
corporate-indentured Republicans marinated in corporate cash, soft on
corporate and environmental crimes and demonstrably anti-labor.

Why then is the overall contest for Party control of Congress too
close to call? Because Democrats are not clearly, relentlessly and
aggressively emphasizing these fundamental issues to distinguish
themselves from the Republicans. Why? Are they unaware, neglectful or
torpid? No, their chronic ambiguity flows from being largely
indentured to the same monied commercial interests as the Republicans.

So Governor Shaheen of New Hampshire, running for the U.S. Senate,
refers to corporate crime as "corporate mismanagement" and other
Democratic candidates are allowing the Republicans to blur key
poll-tested issues like prescription drug benefits, tax cuts for the
super wealthy, and corporate crime enforcement.

Voters want to know whose side candidates are on in their daily
struggles as workers, consumers, patients, small taxpayers and savers
on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the giant corporations that
pay for control of our government in order to get all the goodies
that come out of the hides of working families. Fairness is the great
issue in American politics, stupid!

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats won election after
election by conveying one singularly clear impression - that the
Republican Party was beholden to the wealthy and the Democratic Party
represented the working people. Karl Rove, in the Bush White House,
understands this history. That is why he is engaged in the "blur and
spur" strategy of fuzzing the hot-button issues to portray the
Republicans as fighters for ordinary Americans, instead of the big
businesses which own them. This is also why the Republicans are using
the spur of the drumbeats of war to distract the country away from
pressing domestic necessities, injustices and hazards.

By a margin of nearly two to one the American people do not want a
war against Iraq that involves an invasion, American casualties and
essentially having the United States go it alone. Not when rigorous
UN inspectors can go to Iraq first.

Even more Americans would join these citizens if the mass media
relayed the facts about how boxed in the militarily-weakened dictator
of Iraq is, surrounded by more powerful enemies (Iran, Turkey,
Israel), two-thirds of his country out of his rigid control (no fly
zones), deterred, contained and under 24-hour satellite surveillance.

More voters would be anti-war if there was greater media discussion
about the likelihood of awful civilian casualties and sickness among
the innocent children and adults of Iraq. Voters would also be
anti-war if Americans were given the facts about the opposition to
the touted conduct of this war from inside the Pentagon, among
retired military officers and other experts who believe the risks of
undermining the effort against terrorism, of generating a boomerang
of domestic terrorism around theworld and an endemic civil war in
Iraq (where the U.S. stays as expensive occupier) are not worth
toppling the government of Iraq by a unilateral invasion.

When a group of Gulf War veterans had a news conference at the
National Press Club in Washington on October 24 to point out some of
these consequences (which included conditions, leading to the
sickness of 128,000 Gulf War veterans in 1991) the media did not show
up. (For their statements, see www.veteransforcommonsense.org).

The "cakewalk" view of the planned war widely espoused by the circle
of chickenhawks surrounding George W. Bush is obscuring serious
public debate about another possible outcome -- diverse human and
economic consequences adverse to U.S. and global security during and
after the war is over.

The Democrats can still raise their voices for the people in the next
few days before November 5th, if they understand that waffling rarely
wins campaigns. The people want it straight talk and real action.


~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.